Francesco Gnecchi-Ruscone

Born in Milano in 1924, Francesco Gnecchi-Ruscone joined the Faculty of Architecture at the Polytechnic in Milano in 1942 and graduated in 1949. In the following years he worked in London at the Architectural Association and at the Architects Cooperative Partnership as a designer.

Returning to Italy, Gnecchi-Ruscone participated in projects of the INA-Casa’s area in Milano and in the other provinces in Northern Italy such as Pavia, Como, and Rovigo. From 1962-67, in between two periods of teaching at Yale University in the USA, he was an assistant to Ernesto N. Rogers at Milano’s Poly, and from 1967-70 he obtained the chair of Elementi di Composizione.

Gnecchi-Ruscone’s varied and multifaceted activity included the design of numerous residential buildings. Among them were the mansion at Porto Santo Stefano in 1965, premises in Milano and Vimercate, the Montecarlo Palace complex in Montecarlo, and La Vigie in Cap-Martin between 1978 and 1990. Among his restoration repairs were the Villa Chiericati at Schiavon and the site of the Agricola Commerciale Bank at Reggio Emilia (1975-84). In urban planning, he did projects for Tel-Aviv, Novara, Genova, and Samarcanda. Gnecchi-Ruscone also designed multiple school buildings and sport centers. In the later 1990s he spent time on many tourist settlement projects in Africa, in Guinea-Bissau, Tanzania, and Uganda.

Gnecchi-Ruscone was also involved in promoting sports culture. In his youth he was an athlete in sports such as archery, rowing, equestrian, sailing, and long-distance swimming. From 1969-81 he was President of the Italian Archery Federation, and a member of the council of the CONI. From 1977-89 he was President of the Fédération Internationale de Tir à l’Arc (now the World Archery Federation). He worked with the IOC to change the archery rules at the Olympics and restructured the governance of his federation. In 2019 he was named Honorary President of WAF and Honorary Chairperson of the Board of Justice and Ethics.